The Bamako Convention

In one line

Adopted by the Organization of African Unity at Bamako in January 1991 because Basel had failed to ban anything, it prohibits all imports of hazardous waste into Africa from non-parties, declares them criminal, bans dumping at sea, includes radioactive waste, adopts the precautionary approach by name, and imposes unlimited joint and several liability on generators.

Why Africa wrote its own convention

Basel was adopted in March 1989. Twelve African States and the Organization of African Unity regarded it as a licence for the trade rather than a control on it, for three reasons.

• It regulated instead of prohibiting. Prior informed consent asks a State to weigh a risk it may not be able to assess against money it needs.
• Article 11 left a door open. Bilateral and regional agreements with non-parties remained lawful.
• It excluded radioactive waste, which was precisely what several African States feared most.

The Organization of African Unity had already, in 1988, resolved that the dumping of nuclear and industrial waste in Africa was a crime against Africa and the African people. The Bamako Convention on the Ban of the Import into Africa and the Control of Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes within Africa was adopted at Bamako on 30 January 1991 and entered into force in 1998.

Its structure copies Basel, and then departs from it

The definitions in article 1, the notification procedure in article 6, the duty of re-import in article 8, the illegal traffic list in article 9, and the institutional articles are close to Basel's, sometimes word for word. Learn the differences, because that is what an examiner is asking for.

Difference one: a flat import ban, article 4(1)

All parties shall take appropriate legal, administrative and other measures within the area under their jurisdiction to prohibit the import of all hazardous wastes, for any reason, into Africa from non-contracting parties. Such import shall be deemed illegal and a criminal act.

Read the components.

• All hazardous wastes, not merely those destined for disposal.
• For any reason, so the recovery and recycling justification is closed off.
• Into Africa, a regional rather than a bilateral prohibition.
• From non-contracting parties, which in practice means from outside Africa.
• Deemed illegal and a criminal act, not merely "considered criminal" as in Basel article 4(3).

Parties must forward information about such illegal imports to the Secretariat for distribution, and must cooperate to ensure no imports from a non-party enter a party, considering further enforcement mechanisms at the Conference.

This is four years before the Ban Amendment and it is stronger, because it operates as a duty on the importing States themselves rather than on a list of rich exporters.